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Am I a Bad Person for Still Kind of Liking Martin Amis?

I’ve always loved Martin Amis as a writer. But… I’ve also understood how his public utterances, particularly in the last few years, have quite justifiably pissed off lots of smart, thoughtful people. But where his antagonistic bad wittle boy statements about immigration have been laughably perverse, his latest call for “euthanasia booths” on British street corners is something I can get behind.

Fearing a generational “civil war” between young people and a “silver tsunami” of the aged in the coming decade, Amis, who’s lost people close to him to awful degenerative diseases, told the Sunday Times, “There should be a [euthanasia] booth on every corner where you could get a martini and a medal.” Fuck. I like martinis, and I love medals—I don’t see the problem here. Various societies in favor of oldness are outraged.

Of course, the million dollar question here is which side Amis, now 60, would fight on in the coming war. He says himself: “Well, I’m not a million miles away from that myself.”